


Orctober 2020

by text_orc



Category: Original Work
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:40:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 32
Words: 10,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27198635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/text_orc/pseuds/text_orc
Summary: A very short story about orcs, frequently pornographic, every day throughout October.
Kudos: 4





	1. Day 0: Prelude

**Author's Note:**

> Last year, I tried following along with Inktober by writing a short erotic vignette based on the prompt every day. It was fun while I was able to stick to it, but in the end life got in the way and I dropped out about halfway through.
> 
> This year, I decided to forge my own path, crowdsource my own list of prompts, and apply an extra restriction based on a terrible pun of my own invention: every story now had to feature orcs.
> 
> Here are the rules I set for myself:
> 
>   * One story per day, based on a user-submitted prompt; I collected the prompts beforehand and then randomised the order. The title of each story is the prompt for that day.
>   * Each story must fit into a single Discord message – 2,000 characters, including formatting.
>   * All stories are set in the same fictional universe; time periods and settings may differ, but what an orc is has to remain consistent between them.
>   * I’m not allowed to reuse named characters between stories, though I can use characters from my other writing.
> 

> 
> Enough preamble. On with the show.

Listen! Be ye green, grey, or rust, man or woman or beloved of the Waking Rock, all ye of stony blood, gather as one (and may the soilfolk look on with respect), and hear again the tales of our kind. And listen still; you do well to remember your nature.

We are Orc! We are kith and kin of the Waking Rock, which by the six virtues found strength and purpose beyond the cold dead stone. By our hand, the world bent before us, and we set it to work as we pleased. We overcame, and, in overcoming, we lived.

Let us overcome whatever may be set in our paths, by beast or bird or mortal soul, or even yet by the despots of the heavens, for Orc kneels not to tyrants!

Let the virtues guide us still! Vigour, propel us! Grace, conduct us! Fortitude, sustain us! Brilliance, guide us! Prudence, counsel us! Community, uphold us!

And let us join together in celebration of Orc, in its beauty, passion, fury, resilience, and life!

**Let Orctober begin!**


	2. Day 1: Trinkets

The night before a caravan set off for the Caul Road, it was tradition for the guards to kneel together and pray for safe passage and strength to confront whatever stood in their way. Most of them did. Not Hamid the mechanic, though.

The orcs honoured only their kind’s history, the captain explained. They owed the gods no fealty. As alien as it might seem, that was their business, she stressed, and, as men and women of the world, her crew ought not inquire.

In truth, Hamid wore his gods on his belt. The little bronze canteen held no water, but carried Fortitude within. The tiny silver dagger was suffused with Grace. The captain was right in one respect: he owed these gods nothing. They were comrades, teachers, perhaps, but not masters.

Hamid checked and rechecked the baggage train, ensuring all was secure. One sack wobbled as he nudged a wagon, and he reached up to adjust the ropes. He didn’t disturb the prayer circle. By the time they finished, he was walking back for a third look.

Many weeks later, when the captain thanked him for his service – a whole run without a single spill or breakdown – he lifted a steel ring to his lips and thanked it with a whisper and a kiss. He and his Prudence had worked well together, and it had _earned_ his gratitude.


	3. Day 2: Feast

Ollie turned the can over and over in his hands, looking for a ring pull, a tag, anything. “How do you…”

“Oh, right.” Eboc swiped the can and brought it down hard on his one good tusk. Thick white foam bubbled up from the fresh hole in the top as he handed it back. “Sorry, chief. There ya go.”

The war had ended weeks ago, but this felt more like the real end. It was Ollie and Eboc’s last day on duty at the watchtower, and they’d emptied out their food stashes to celebrate, gifts from home they’d been hoarding for this very day. Sherbert and orange chews from the sweet shop Ollie’s parents ran, and the last of Eboc’s hog jerky and slatebread. And booze. Lots and lots of booze.

Ollie bit back splutters as the orcish ale seared his throat. “Gods above, you people _enjoy_ this?” he gasped. “It’s like burning tar!”

Eboc laughed, a deep, full laugh that seemed to shake the foundations several storeys down. “Quite partial to a bit o’ tar, me!” he boomed. He cracked open a can of his own and took a swig. “This gets ya pissed faster, though.”

For a while, there was quiet, aside from the rustling of paper and Ollie swearing as he choked on his beer. Eboc was right – it was potent stuff. Most humans would consider it something between hard liquor and chemical weaponry. But Ollie could handle his drink like any good soldier.

The question was whether he could handle how he felt about Eboc for just one evening more.

They were out of the force tomorrow, whispered the beer. And he’d seen officers and their troops get up to far more in his time on the southern front. What harm could it really do?

Their eyes met, and didn’t budge.

The beer won.

“Your lips taste like lemon for ages after one of these,” Ollie remarked, popping a sherbert ball into his mouth.

“Hm?” said Eboc.

“Oh yes,” said Ollie. “Come here and find out.”


	4. Day 3: Fjord

Stone sees, and stone remembers. The Waking Rock left their mark on the world, and every last speck of sediment retains a tiny fragment of their consciousness.

Keuraz, like every Slate Clan orc, had known this longer than she’d known her name. But here, flanked on both sides by great walls of rock that crowded out the dimming sky, she _felt_ it.

She worked her single oar a little quicker than she should have. Her upper arms burned from exhaustion, but she didn’t relent. The cliffs heightening meant she wasn’t far from the outpost, and maybe, just maybe, she could outpace the invaders and make it there by sunrise.

The stone looked on and judged her. She should have stayed and fought, it seemed to say. With her help, Baros and the garrison might have held out long enough for Isk to finish the ritual and bring down the flames of justice. What was her life compared to theirs? She was no true orc. Deserter. Coward. _Traitor_.

It really had been the only option, though. She’d cut down the bridge, but that wouldn’t hold them for long; she’d seen their kind pile up one atop another to cross river and ravine alike. They didn’t tire as she did; if she took the Carrion Road back to the outpost, they’d catch her and devour her. But the waterways gave her a safer escape. She’d seen stragglers above, but they couldn’t swim, let alone row.

The inlet was a little shallower here, and Keuraz spied clusters of thin, pale reeds breaking the surface here and there, specks of life in the abyssally cold waters. Then she felt the barge jolt beneath her, peered over the starboard side, and identified what she’d thought was a clump of reeds as a bony, grasping hand. Savage hunger burned in the twin pinpricks of red light beneath, and in the dozens more pinpricks she now saw flickering awake.

Draugr.

Keuraz found herself smiling as she stowed the oar and hefted her axe. If the stone was watching her fail like this, she’d at least give it a show to remember.


	5. Day 4: Outsider

It had been five months since Dame Jessica Westwind had taken on her post in the city-state of Rulac’s Rest, and she liked to think that she was starting to get used to it. She’d become intimately familiar with the treacherous kudzu of local politics, of course, but she was also getting a feel for the local culture. The ambassador felt that she was taking her first assignment remarkably well. But on the first day of her first summer heat wave, Rulac’s Rest tossed her a reminder that she was a long way from the familiar customs of home.

It came in the form of her secretary and cultural guide, Rosie, a peppy young half-orc woman who’d worked here for three years and came highly recommended by the Foreign Bureau. Jessica was used to seeing Rosie every morning to take her through her day’s business and bring the news from Senate Hill. She was less used to seeing quite this _much_ of her.

“Hot weather order, ma’am!” grinned Rosie. “They relax the decency laws during heat waves, so we get to start dressing down!”

“And by dressing down you mean…” Jessica looked down at Rosie’s plain linen skirt, and then up at her full, green-blue breasts, a little paler than the rest of her skin. “Good gods, am _I_ expected to…”

“Oh, it’s strictly optional. But I’d recommend it.” Rosie walked over to the shutters, threw them open, and a sudden wave of hot air stung Jessica’s eyes.

“Ye gods!” Jessica yelled, pulling them shut again. “Tell me I don’t have business today…”

“Sorry, ma’am. Meeting the Prince Regent at noon,” said Rosie. “Even hotter by then.”

The ambassador sighed, gritted her teeth, and shrugged off her dressing gown, baring herself fully. Rosie breathed in sharply and looked her up and down with a distinctly unprofessional eye.

“He better not stare,” muttered Jessica, rummaging for something light to wear.

Rosie smiled again. “He won’t, ma’am. Very proper man. But, from what I’ve seen of him, I think _you_ might.”


	6. Day 5: Storm

Void squalls were never easy, but this one was particularly brutal. The prospector ship _Light of Clarity_ had dropped anchor minutes before it hit. It was a lumpen beast of steel and steam that had little to fear from the coils of eldritch energy sizzling across the sky, but the real threat to the seventeen orcs aboard was far less physical.

Squallfury was the stuff of nautical horror stories, a dread affliction that set light to the mind and drove even the calmest soul insensible with rage. The effects varied, but all too often they manifested as murderous frenzy, the subjects lacking an outlet for their tension. Captain Voz Slate had decided, as the storm blew closer, that his best defence against squallfury was to give his crew another outlet. They’d just stared at first, but most now seemed to be applying themselves to the plan with enthusiasm.

Captain Slate was flat on his back on the cold metal floor of the hold, pinned down by Runa, the night engineer, whose tusks grazed his neck as she brought her full weight down on his hips again and again. His fingertips dug into her waist just as the rivets on the floor dug into his back, and he growled like a cornered beast with every slam, eyes blazing with otherworldly ardour.

To Slate’s right, his first mate Yaqqa was on her knees being mercilessly railed by a deckhand, her fat dark cock jerking as he drove deeper into her ass. Behind him, the captain was faintly aware of Salt the bosun pinning another deckhand to the wall with one weathered hand and shoving two fingers of the other into her sodden pussy. The hard metal ceiling sang of the trysts taking place above them, the moans and roars and squeals coalescing into an unholy chorus that rivalled the storm’s sound and fury.

It was chaos.

It was heaven.

Slate barely felt his orgasm as it gripped him and flooded Runa. The fury had taken him, but, this time, he and his crew had made it a frenzy of wanton life.


	7. Day 6: You're Mine

Arijga was restless. Her dress, allegedly spun from the finest elven fibres, was ill-fitting and itched like a raw pelt, the room was just a little too warm for her liking, and the wine wasn’t even strong enough to get her pissed and help her through it. But none of those were the real issue.

The real issue was that General Korusz Kerax, her husband, the love of her life, was half the room away, and being fawned over by a gang of human noblewomen, giggling like schoolgirls as they found excuse after excuse to feel the rocky orcish physique beneath his dress uniform. It wasn’t that she feared he might stray. Korusz wouldn’t dream of bedding another woman without inviting Arijga to watch or join in. It was that they got to enjoy him, that mighty knot of strength and courage and valour, and she was stuck over here making small talk with the least interesting baroness in all the Realms. It wasn’t _fair_ , and she couldn’t take a moment more of it.

“Would you excuse me?” she said, not even bothering to wait for the baroness to finish her sentence. She covered the distance to Korusz in a few long seconds and took him by the arm. “I’m sorry, General, but could we talk in private for a moment?”

They made their escape into the palace’s underguarded west wing and found a shady alcove that put them out of the obvious sight lines. “My love, the etiquette clearly forbids…” Korusz protested, even as he hiked up her skirts and unlaced his britches.

“Fuck the etiquette, General,” snapped Arijga. “Fuck the etiquette, fuck this place, and fuck me, right now, like I’m a common fucking _whore_. I can’t wait another –” He cut her off by following her last instruction, grip tight around her thighs as he slammed home.

“You,” Korusz whispered between strokes, “are incorrigible. You are a disgrace to orckind. And I wouldn’t have you any other way.”

He didn’t hold back. The brittle human architecture around them would break before his wife did.


	8. Day 7: Downtime

Deadly silence fell over the room like a toxic fog. Erok planted his feet and locked eyes with his opponent. Nuvia had bested him too many times before. Tonight, he’d get his own back.

“You won’t do it,” she taunted. “You ain’t got the guts.”

“Try me,” Erok snarled, baring his teeth, tusks gleaming in the candlelight. His grip tightened. This was it. He couldn’t turn back now.

“Perhaps I will,” said Nuvia. “Go on then, slateboy.”

She, too, was tense, waiting for him to make a move. She didn’t show it, but Erok could sense it. He took a deep breath and delivered the blow. Not the one she was expecting “Four _sixe_ _s_.”

Nuvia’s eyes widened. “Oh, horseshit!” she cried. She stuck out a hand and swept away Erok’s cup, lifting her own with the other hand. Seven pairs of eager eyes stared down at the dice. It took them one second to count the sixes, and another second to confirm that there were, indeed, four of them. Then the room erupted, a chorus of whoops and “Aww _shit_!”s and “E-ro-ok”s that made the owls in the tree outside scatter in panic. Ducah grabbed Erok by the wrist and raised his hand high, cheering “Cham-pion! Cham-pion!” in Nuvia’s general direction.

“You got lucky, bastard!” yelled Nuvia over the noise, though her mouth was curled into a grin. “Again!”

“C’mon, Vi,” Erok shot back. “I don’t want to bleed you dry.”

“Oh yeah? Then what say we change the stakes a little? This time, I bet you –”

A screaming streak of red light cut through the night sky. “Red flare!” came a yell from upstairs. “Raiding party! Ride out, ride out!”

As one, the orcs abandoned their dice and made for their footlockers, sighing and tutting. “Elves again?” groaned Hogum, shouldering his quiver. “Prudence keep me, if it’s the fucking elves again…”

“Third time this season,” said Nuvia. “I told you, they’re getting bolder. Only a matter of time until –”

“Pipe down, everyone,” said Ducah. “We’ll have time to bitch later. Let’s go be heroes.”


	9. Day 8: Fireside

**24.** And so it came to pass that the WAKING ROCK found THEMSELF alone with Elorc, the crafter, at a fire pit in the woods.

 **25.** And Elorc said unto the WAKING ROCK, Join me here tonight, that we may forge new and precious things together.

 **26.** And the WAKING ROCK made reply, How then shall we work? For I am but a creature of unyielding earth, and know not of your shaping arts.

 **27.** And Elorc took off her shawl and showed her bared self unto the WAKING ROCK, and said unto THEM, Lie with me tonight, for as mighty tools are smote into shape by the heat of the forge-fire, so this love-fire will be the heat by which we make our masterworks.

 **28.** And the WAKING ROCK saw Elorc in her nakedness, and THEY found her form most arresting, such that THEY could not look away, nor control the fiery excitement in THEIR belly; for the fire burned now in the WAKING ROCK as well, and THEY would soon light it within Elorc.

 **29.** And so the WAKING ROCK and Elorc lay together, such that Elorc fell heavy with child; and THEY resolved to join her still, every night, at that fire pit, and lie with her once more.

 **30.** And when Elorc’s time came, she bore into the world a creature unseen before, wrought of one third-part of flesh, one third-part of stone, and one third-part of flame. And the WAKING ROCK looked upon what THEY and Elorc had wrought, and spoke thus:

 **31.** This being is of Elorc as much as of ME, and of the flame as much as of either of us, but we shall name it for Elorc, who bore it into the world. May its kind grow and flourish such that all may find their own paths, and overcome all that might impede them.

 **32.** And thus Elorc and the WAKING ROCK and the fire pit became parents to the kind known, then and now and forevermore, as ORC.

– _The True and Complete Stanzas of Orckind_ , 2.24-32 (trans. Nezhun & Weatherwood)


	10. Day 9: War Council

Zivam Hask’s campaign headquarters seethed with a thousand small noises that built to a cacophony: the rustle of pages, the muttered briefings of runners and organizers in quiet corners, the never-quite-rhythmic clicking of the abacus. Normally, his entrance would have silenced them all, but this was no ordinary evening and he knew it. The ballots had just closed, and, at dawn, the Third Ward of the City of Enalyr would be introduced to its new Warden. If he could bring down the incumbent Henton Yaan, Zivam would be Enalyr’s first ever orcish Warden.

They’d set up camp aboard a decommissioned orc steamship, the _Granite Justice_ , permanently moored at the Northside docks. The _Justice_ sat lower in the water tonight from the sheer volume of people aboard – Zivam’s whole inner circle had piled into the claustrophobic captain’s quarters at the ship’s heart, where one wall was completely taken up with a map of the Third and all the polls and insider reports they could muster.

“Echo Heights is as good as ours,” announced Tyris, Zivam’s chief analyst, as he ducked through the door. The skinny, balding human was paging through reports so fast that Zivam feared he might set them alight.

“That’s a big get,” said Obiya, the sloganeer, who was at a loss for what to do now that the actual campaign was over. “Anywhere else looking close to declaring?”

“Not that I can –” began Tyris, but a new arrival silenced him with a wave of her hand.

“Galetown.”

“Fuck off,” whispered Zivam, undisguised wonder in his eyes.

“Galetown,” Yev repeated. “I have heard it among the cobbles.” The others knew by now not to question her methods. Stonespeakers had ways.

Zivam scanned the wallchart, mentally shading in the boroughs. If Yev was right, the ward was as good as his.

“Get the boiler running,” he said to an aide. “Coffee for everyone. We have a long night ahead of us, but I think the result will be worth staying up for.”


	11. Day 10: Healing

“I speak not of visible things,” said the necromancer. Her tone was odd, metered, as though she were reciting a poem. “Think, soil-lady. You buy a blade from a smith. You hand him his dues. Your worth falls as his increases. You understand this. You have financiers to explain it to you.”

“I do,” said the queen, resisting the urge to tell the black-robed orc that she knew her numbers quite well enough without her ministers’ help.

“It is just so,” the necromancer said, “with years.”

The queen gave her a blank stare. She sighed and carried on. “You may have felt that your husband died before his time. It is not so, or your healers could have revived him. He is beyond a healer’s help. I am not a healer, but a trader. If you wish him to live a few years more, then that time must be taken from somewhere.”

The queen was silent for a long few moments. “Where,” she ventured at last, “might that time come from?”

The necromancer scowled and turned away. “Your request is your own,” she spat. “If you presume to draw from others, then I have no business with you.”

“Wait!” The queen stretched out a hand. “I’ll pay. I’ll pay to bring him back. How many years do I have left?” She took a deep breath. “I’ll give him half.”

The necromancer turned back, shaking her head. “That is for the earth to know. I cannot say. How long?” She drew closer, laying two fingers on the king’s coffin. “Give me a number.”

The queen swallowed hard. “Ten years,” she whispered. “I will give him ten years.”

“It is done.” The necromancer closed the distance and kissed the queen, counting out the days as they flowed through her body and down her arm. Before she had reached the seventh year, though, the queen went cold in her arms and crumpled to the floor. The necromancer didn’t have to check her pulse to know she was gone.

Unmoved, she opened the coffin’s lid and laid a hand on the king’s warm cheek.

“Your Majesty,” she said, “I am afraid I bring bad news.”


	12. Day 11: Sacred

“Come.”

Obrun ducked through three layers of curtains and shut his eyes reflexively against the hot, wet air of the chieftain’s private baths. Even once he’d adjusted, the steam was so thick that he could only make Ameela out as a vague dark green shape until he was almost within touching distance. She was hard to miss, though. The chieftain’s wife was a sturdy woman, taller, broader, and probably stronger than Obrun, and five months of her fourth pregnancy had only made her loom larger in the water, an icon of vitality and fertility.

“Join me, Obrun,” Ameela crooned.

Obrun knew the drill by now, but he still waited for her word to start shedding his armour. He wondered whether it was worth turning up naked next time – Ameela’s appetite for blessings from her guards had only grown since she’d started showing again.

He lowered himself into the water, beside her in the great drop-in bath. Ameela lay back, her great swollen breasts surfacing as they rested on the curve of her belly. “Come now, Obrun. Bless me.”

No time for pleasantries today, then. Obrun assumed the position, standing between Ameela’s spread legs and facing her. Quietly, he thanked his Fortitude that, despite the exertions of the past few days, his cock still stood at attention readily when he looked upon Ameela’s magnificent nude body.

For a few minutes, the only sound was the slick-slick-slick of Obrun’s hand as he stroked for the clan-mother. He wanted more than this. He wanted to _have_ her, to ease her aches with hands and mouth. But she wanted a seed-blessing, for an easy term and a strong line, and it was his holy duty to provide.

A groan from Obrun, a contented sigh from Ameela, a splattering of pearly white across her chest. She arched her back as she massaged it into her skin, giving it an extra shine.

Mercifully, she gave him a moment to recover before she said, “Dismissed, Obrun. Send in Alaz next, won’t you?”

“Aye, clan-mother,” said Obrun.


	13. Day 12: Soft Boy

Humans tended to feel sorry for Arec. After all, he looked so _different_ from how orcs were, well, supposed to look. Where was the muscle on him? Where was that hewn-stone figure? If not for the short, thick tusks between his lips and the brighter patches of orange on his neck and wrists, he might well have been mistaken for a heavyset human with a tan. Surely he must be an outcast, they decided.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Arec was the son of a union boss, and he’d grown up as part of the great family that was the canal network. When he had left to seek his fortune elsewhere, he’d done so with his parents’ blessing. But Arec had grown tired of correcting people, and the sympathy got him the occasional free drink. He saved the whole truth for those he cared about.

Arec had not the Vigour nor the Fortitude for long days and nights on the waterways, but he was very, very good with his hands. He had friends in the armoury, the copperworks, and the alchemists’ guild who’d bring him offcuts and spare parts, and he’d spin them into brooches, earrings, necklaces… whatever caught his fancy. But, whatever oddments he started with, the result was always identifiably his work.

His works had caught on among the nobility. Every piece was bespoke, and a surefire conversation starter; he was sure some wore “Arec originals” for the prestige, so they could extol to their friends the virtuous choice they’d made in supporting a poor orc boy like him. He didn’t much care. Those people paid him just the same.

Once, he’d had some low-ranking royal approach him (through a surrogate, of course) and offer him a place as a retainer at court. He’d turned her down, of course. It was a tempting offer, but his modest room above the Sword and Sorceress, and the revolutionary cell next door whose work his jewellery helped fund, were quite enough for him.


	14. Day 13: Goddess

She was liege of all she surveyed, the terror of paupers and kings alike. She was a hurricane given shape and purpose and deadly intelligence. She and her ancestors were the heroes of a thousand badlands folk tales and the villains of a thousand bedtime stories. At her will, legions fell. Beneath her boot, empires crumbled.

The Tremor Queen – to call her anything less grand was to invite death – was a fearsome presence, looming over Ambassador Netholyn from atop the bone-shaking cogwork walker that served as her throne. As they had been instructed, Netholyn got down on both knees and spoke to the walker’s battle-scarred frontplate, trying not to look directly at her.

“O Empress of the Badlands,” they intoned in perfect, accentless Tyurei, trying to make themselves heard over the murmurs of the crowd that had gathered around them. “I have come to You under a flag of treaty, and seek Your clemency in ending the violence that has befallen our people.”

The Tremor Queen must have been leaning down, because her voice was blood-chillingly close when she spoke again. “My clemency is a precious thing, _khensai_. Neither gold nor favours will buy it. So tell me, what do your people offer as tribute?”

Netholyn cleared their throat. Truth be told, the elves of Coldhaven had little to offer. But the Tremor Queen was a fickle goddess. Sometimes, strange offers could quell her rage – a few years’ life from a necromancer, or a magnificent artwork commemorating her glory.

“I offer myself,” they said, “as a trophy of your victories.”

Quick as a desert cobra, a mechanical arm snatched Netholyn up and brought them face to face with the Tremor Queen. Her eyes were flame-orange and full of sudden, biting hunger, devouring Netholyn alive as they swept up and down their slender, willow-smooth frame.

“I have never shared an elf’s company before,” she growled. “Let me see how I like it, and then I shall make my decision.”


	15. Day 14: Cavern

The adventurers were three days into their expedition to the cultists’ underground lair, and now, at last, they were close. Flickering shadows played on the hewn stone walls, far more than the four in their party. Around a tight hairpin corner, the orcs heard murmurs, chanting, the beginnings of another foul ritual to blight the surface world. They’d arrived just in time to stop it.

Besh held up a hand to shush his comrades and listened to the incantation for a few seconds, muttering a cantrip of his own to help translate. “The spell’s High Empyreal,” he confirmed, “but they’re speaking Anthish in between. And either they’re humans or they’re bloody good impressionists.”

Onno cracked his knuckles, growing tense with anticipation. “So what’s the plan? ‘Cause I’m happy to kick in the door and start cracking heads.”

But Fazia, the medic and nominated leader for this outing, shook her head. “They’ll have that passage guarded. Maybe trapped. Besh, can you tell how thick the stone is here?” she asked, resting a hand on the cavern wall.

Besh tapped out a short ditty on the stone, muttering another spell, and a smile crept across his face. “It’s thin, Faz. It’s very thin indeed. And I like where this is going.”

“All in favour?” said Fazia, but Onno, Besh and Yottie all had their hands up before she’d finished speaking. She grinned. “Motion passes. Ready up.”

Fazia readied her crossbow, Besh his staff; Onno took a few ragged breaths to work himself into a battle frenzy. Behind them, Yottie was pulling levers on the arms and breastplate of her battlerig, setting the boiler to work.

With a hand signal from Fazia, the party snuffed and stowed their torches. All was quiet for a long moment.

“Yottie,” whispered Fazia, “bring the noise.”

With a thunderclap of raw power, the steam hammer blew clean through the wall, and the cultists suddenly had four huge new problems on their hands.


	16. Day 15: War Games

Sergeant Hakim stared at the table. He scratched his chin. He stared at the table. He made a vague noise of frustration. He stared at the table.

“Lieutenant,” he said at last, “I thought you said this game was simple.”

“It _i_ _s_ simple,” insisted Wren. “I didn’t say it was _easy_.”

They were playing Enalysh chess, though Wren referred to it insistently by its traditional name, Partisan’s Morris. The set belonged to the watch house, and was older than either of them – the detailing on the wooden pieces had long since worn away.

“… so if I try to take the plaza…” muttered Hakim, playing out the possibilities in his mind and realising that they all seemed to end with him losing. “No, you’ve got me pinned with your orc.”

Wren allowed the hint of a smile to cross her face, just for a moment. “I have,” she said.

“You can really tell this is a human game, ma’am,” said Hakim. “You’ve got archers, scouts, priests, and then… orcs. Just orcs.”

“This game’s hundreds of years old,” said Wren, shrugging. “Back then, it really was just the Slate Clan mercenaries in Enalyr. Certainly no-one like you, Sergeant.”

Hakim thought for a few moments more, and then something clicked in his mental map of the board. He picked up a tall piece with the remnants of a little crown device atop its smooth, round head, and set it down at the western edge of the board. “I’m going to contest the docks with my mage,” he said.

Wren raised an eyebrow. “You sure about that?” she asked. “You don’t want to play something a bit tougher there?”

“I’m sure, Lieutenant,” Hakim smiled.

“Alright,” said Wren, “I’ll bite. Quartermaster to the docks, carrying archer.”

“Orc to downtown,” said Hakim. “I _think_ that boxes in the docks, doesn’t it?”

Wren blinked, shook her head, and took her pieces away. “You’re really meant to use your orcs more for point defence…”

“Maybe five hundred years ago, ma’am,” said Hakim. “Your move, isn’t it?”


	17. Day 16: Scout

“From the Lime Clan, Junah Thriceborn!”

Ocla applauded politely and tried not to let the disappointment show on her face. Junah had won the last Clansmoot tourney, and the one before. Never mind that Ocla had tighter form, better defence, and hit harder – Junah knew how to _sell_ a victory. The judges and the crowd loved her too much to let her lose.

She sat alone afterwards, perched on a ridge overlooking the moot. She took a deep draught from a skinful of cheap Granite Clan ale, and nearly choked on it when someone addressed her from behind.

“Ocla Bronzefinger, isn’t it?”

How such a titan of a woman had managed to sneak up on her, Ocla had no idea; she must’ve been seven feet, at least. She looked about sixty summers old, perhaps more, but her posture was steel-firm, a warrior’s stance. Her skin was deep, midnight blue, etched with intricate knotwork tattoos in pale lilac, and her clothes, layers of interlocking dark linens that made it hard to make out her body, were of no clan Ocla recognised.

“Who wants to know?” she replied, trying not to look too startled.

The giant woman ignored her and came to sit down next to her. “You know,” she said, gazing out towards the moot, “your form is superb.”

“Yeah,” said Ocla darkly, “but that’s not what matters, is it? They want a show, not a lesson.”

“It matters to some more than others.” The giant drew something from the folds of her tunic and laid it in Ocla’s lap. It was a brooch, a crescent moon cast in silver with a raven device resting in its crook. “Tell me, Ocla, do you know of the Blackfeather Guard?”

Ocla did. Of _course_ she did. There wasn’t an orcish martial arts student alive who hadn’t grown up on tales of the elusive Guard and their crusades against the beings of the hungry dark. She stared at the brooch, then at the woman, eyes wide. She nodded.

“Tell me, Ocla,” said the Blackfeather Guard, raising an eyebrow, “do you want to know more?”


	18. Day 17: Homecoming

_Sand and snow and soil and stone  
The sunlit host is marching home_

Kaskar was cooking breakfast when the ground began to shake. The coffee pot rattled against its stand, and the rhythm of the metallic shivers set his heart alight. _One_ and _two_ and _three_ and _four_ and _one_ and _two_ and…

He doused the fire and ran through to the bedchamber to rouse Yenra, but she was already awake, counting out the beats as the bedframe quivered. Neither of them said a word. Kaskar took her hand, and, together, they ran, their old bones electric with promise.

_Sun and moon and wind and rain  
The bonds we broke are whole again_

Others leaked out into the streets in ones and twos after them, some anxious, some ecstatic, all chasing the rising sun.

The muster field outside the east gate was deserted when Kaskar and Yenra arrived. It gave them a perfect view of the road, and the column of heaving bodies and tattered banners making its way towards them.

_Steel and skin and flesh and bone  
The sunlit host is marching home_

They kept running. Kaskar stumbled as the force of the host, marching and singing in unison, throbbed through the brittle earth. “The red flag,” gasped Yenra, breath ragged, “with the black wolf. The red flag…”

It was near the front of the column.

_Heart and soul and guts and brain  
The bonds we broke are whole again_

They swerved off the road, into the unpaved badlands, and ran alongside the column, scanning face after face after face, and _there he was_. Face riven with scars, one tusk broken, but it was him.  
  
They caught their son’s eye as he passed. He smiled at them, and Kaskar began to weep.

_Sand and snow and soil and stone_

Yenra turned to her husband and let out seven years of tension with a single embrace. No more. Only their heartbeats, and the morning sun, and the voices of ten thousand warriors cracking the world asunder.

_The sunlit host is marching home_


	19. Day 18: Buff Lady

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This prompt was requested four times by four different people.

Her body was a riptide, untethered from the world. She could plant her bare feet right there, in the middle of the flow, and the river currents would give out before she did.

She spearfished, which the fishermen in town said was primitive, but they wouldn’t dare say it to her face. Her temper was even, but her spear was sharp and jagged, and her visitors often found themselves painfully aware of how much larger and slower they were than the fish she skewered.

She was cooking one when I came across her, turning it slowly over a well-used campfire. I had expected to wave a greeting and pass without incident, but she saw the weariness in my gait – I was coming back from a punishing hike in the crags – and hailed me. “Come have a bite, traveller,” she said. “Enough to share.” I unshouldered my pack and watched her as she filleted a huge chunk of fish with a knife of polished bone. She was quick, her forearm pulsing rhythmically as she worked. A heartbeat, almost.

We talked a little. She didn’t ask my name, and I returned the favour. Her manner was like her tools, plain and hard-edged, but she had a lot to share – a few stories from the river, a quicker route home, and a cup of syrupy tea brewed from the rushes.

By the time I’d drained my cup, it was getting dark, and she offered to let me stay the night. As I started to unpack my bedroll, she looked at me quizzically. “Room to spare on the furs,” she grunted.

There wasn’t _much_ to spare, but, as I shifted closer to her, I found I didn’t mind.

“Shouldn’t sleep in clothes,” she said. She’d already taken off her breastband and shorts and hung them outside to dry in the sunset, and that was all the encouragement I needed to join her. As my britches pooled on the floor, she gave me an appreciative nod.

“You look good,” she said. I thanked her as I settled in on the furs. Then she put an arm around me, and…

Gods, her hands were so _strong_. But my tongue’s strong too, in its own way.


	20. Day 19: Drums

Brÿte Mountain’s first tour in human lands was proving a meteoric success. Their combination of soaring vocal refrains and fierce melodies had the locals humming their tunes for weeks after they’d gone, but the real secret to their success was their drummer, Mosz “The Mask” Mesa. Mosz had been a soldier, and the bits of old marching tunes he incorporated into his drumlines gave the music just a little extra drive, something to keep the audience bouncing and the band at the top of their game. His place might have been at the back of the stage, but, according to the critics, he was the star of the show.

The young couple kneeling at Mosz’s feet, fighting over his cock with their tongues, certainly seemed to agree.

He hadn’t caught their names. Maybe the woman was called Katya? Or had that been the other redhead, the girl who’d asked him to sign his name just above her pussy in Caldabad last week? As she lapped up a bead of precum from the fat ochre tip of his shaft, he decided he didn’t care. She was a fucking natural. Her adorable little boyfriend was matching her pace pretty well, though. His face and manner a few minutes ago had screamed “I’m straight but it’s okay if it’s you”, but his lips on Mosz’s heavy, churning balls sent a very different message.

Mosz leaned back against the wall and stroked his cock a little from the base, squeezing out another pearl of pre for the woman who might have been Katya to swallow down. “Fuck, you want it bad, don’t you?” he groaned. “Best warm-up I could ask for…”

Above them, on the stage, the announcer started his introduction. “Almost time!” yelped Maybe-Katya, suddenly anxious.

Mosz sighed with frustration and pulled his britches up. No shirt, of course. He got hot while he played.

“Knight and Gnomon,” he grunted as he turned to leave. “After the show.”

“We’ll be there,” grinned Maybe-Katya’s boyfriend, wiping a strand of pre from his lips. “Gotta finish what we started.”


	21. Day 20: Tusks

“Do you like them?”

The pale, soft elf drew their fingers back with a start. “I’m sorry, I didn’t even realise I was…”

It was the start of a classic string of apologies, but their companion laughed it off, a deep belly laugh that shook the tree they were resting against and made them jump back in fright. “Relax, Yinshal,” he boomed. “I’d have told you if I didn’t want it.”

“Hard to remember, Vo,” sighed Yinshal, leaning back in to drape an arm over their mountain of a lover. They were both naked, and the sunset reflected off the thin sheen of sweat they’d worked up earlier. “I spend all day dealing in subtext and etiquette…”

“Yinshal,” said Vo, catching them by the chin with one thick green finger. “I like it when you stroke my tusks. You can keep doing it.”

Yinshal nodded meekly (as best they could – Vo’s finger was firm) and reached back out to caress Vo’s tusks. They were warm and hard to the touch, yet smooth, like volcanic glass. The sensation was fascinating.

“Can you feel it?” they asked after a while.

Vo tried to answer without moving his jaw. The tips were sharp, and he didn’t want to hurt Yinshal. “A little,” he said. “Not like skin. More like, you know, teeth. Or fingernails.”

“Oh,” murmured Yinshal.

“It’s nice, though,” said Vo. “Feels close. I mean, it’s not like your ears, where I touch them and you go wild, but I like it.”

Yinshal bristled at the very mention of their ears, pale face flushing a deep russet. “Vo, our ears help us sense our surroundings, they _have_ to be that sensitive. It’s not my fault that touching them makes me…”

“Oh, I know,” Vo rumbled, reaching around to flick the sharp tip of Yinshal’s ear with a finger. “It’s a fun side effect, though.”

Yinshal’s fingers dug into Vo’s firm belly. He felt his thigh growing slick where their body pressed against it. Then he was on his back, and they were on him, and it was dark before they spoke again.


	22. Day 21: Festival

We’re out on the geyserfields tonight. The hot steam finds allies among the pilgrims, smoke and sweat and incense, and joins them to wage war on the frigid sky.

It’s the last night of winter and I don’t think I’m ever going to stop moving.

Look at him. His arms, heavy with ribbons and tassels, carve circuitous pathways through the heavy air, leaving breezes in their wake. He sings in a nameless language the soulgrass essence whispers to him, breathing deep between stanzas to feed the teacher in his lungs.

Look at her. She’s turning, turning, faster than the eye can follow, a desert twister wrapped up in furs and hides. Her hot breath spirals into a cloak of white mist that never quite sinks to earth, held aloft by the heat and want of hundreds of my kin.

Look at us. All of us. Artisans, merchants, warriors, proud and lucid folk all. And here we stand – no, here we _move_ , graceless, insensible, eyes fiery and vacant, here in the prickling-hot embrace of the geysers. They own us now, every hiss and splutter a mandate: run, dance, flail, don’t stop, never cease, not until we tell you to, and we won’t.

What was I, before I breathed in the smoke? Someone’s child. Someone’s parent, perhaps. Those people aren’t here. Their bodies are, I should think, but they’re gone. Just like me. I’m not here either. My body’s dancing, and I’m up in the sky with the steam, and we’re fighting the cold. And as long as we stay, as long as we fight and fight and don’t let up, we’re going to win.

At last, the night collapses and makes its surrender, slinking below the horizon to negotiate terms. The sun claims victory, and makes its advance. Below us, the fires, untended, wither before a stronger, more ancient heat. It’s the first day of spring, and we have ensured that there’ll be a second.


	23. Day 22: Coming of Age

Seven figures made their weary way up the last slope, four Slate Clan men and three Slate Clan women, all in their eighteenth summer. Their bare ash-grey skin was inked in pale blues and greens, forming sharp, irregular tile patterns that turned them into walking mosaics. They hadn’t eaten or drank since sunrise. All that sustained them for these last steps was the plume of purple smoke at the very top of the sediment hill.

The source of the smoke was an odd structure: a heap of colourful fabric swaying gently in the abrasive breeze, a little like a circus tent. The smell from within was enough to make all seven mouths water, and the party hastened inside, grabbing the bowls left for them at the entrance and gulping down the seething broth until none remained. Whoever had prepared the stew and lit the fire beneath it was long gone.

Once all seven were sated, they sat in silence for a time around the cauldron, trying not to look each other in the eye. They knew what came next, but only Reizi, the medic’s daughter, had the courage to make the first move.

At the bottom of the cauldron was a disc of polished obsidian, set into the base. Reizi bit her lip, clenched her fists, and then – _ptoo_ – spat onto the inky circle. She turned and made for one of the seven sleeping furs set out around the tent’s edge. Behind her, the hiss of steam from her spittle coalesced into a half-familiar shape, a _not_ -Reizi, with her manner and her aura, but a wholly alien form.

Reizi extended a hand and beckoned her steam-lover to the sleeping fur. Their vaporous skin was solid as shale, and made hers sing when they touched her.

Beikh got up, then Azkal, then Orima. They gave the cauldron what they had, and the cauldron gave back in kind. One by one, the orcs brought their counterparts to bed.

This evening, they had entered as initiates, unproven in body and soul. Tomorrow morning, they would leave as full-fledged members of the Slate Clan.


	24. Day 23: Post-Battle

“We march for the Stack tomorrow,” barked the knight-commander. “Make camp for tonight.” She stepped down from the makeshift podium and stomped off towards her tent, fielding questions from two aides who scurried after her.

Melka sighed and got to her feet. Her legs were leaden, even out of her armour, but she needed space. She wouldn’t exactly be missing a night of raucous celebration.

The warriors of Anthem Kuraka’s first regiment of foot were spent. They’d been spent for months. They were no longer the proud guardians from the recruitment posters, deadly barricades of meat and metal who broke hell’s legions against their shield wall; they were exhausted wrecks who longed for one week, just one, without a demonic incursion to quash. When they knew that another wave would await them at the Stack, another rift on the verge of bursting and vomiting forth its wretched legionnaires, it was hard to feel like they’d won.

“Mel! Wait up!”

She didn’t have to turn. Zanyo could whisper her name into a hurricane and she’d know it was him. (And she’d probably tell him off for doing something as stupid as talking to extreme weather.)

They walked together in silence, looking for somewhere to sit that wasn’t too far from camp. The savannah here was strewn with boulders, and soon enough they found one that looked agreeably flat.

“You lose any today?” asked Zanyo.

Melka shook her head. Her squad had been lucky.

“You don’t feel like talking tonight.”

Again, she shook her head.

“Alright.” Zanyo got it, in a way that most of Melka’s shieldmates didn’t, but it was still a relief every time he told her.

They watched the sun go down. The long grass tickled their ankles through fraying boots.

“We didn’t die,” Zanyo said.

Melka smiled a brief, ritualistic smile.

“And we won’t die tomorrow. We won’t.” He nudged her arm. “Mum will fucking kill us if we die tomorrow.”

Melka smiled again, and this time it was untrained.


	25. Day 24: Moonlight

Navira’s last shift of the evening was a quiet, smooth affair, and brought her back to the depot a few minutes ahead of schedule. She ran a few final checks on the barge, picked up her week’s wages, and jumped aboard that very same barge just as it was leaving again, this time as a passenger.

She got changed on the way. Off with the overalls, folded up and stowed neatly in her tote bag. On with her battledress: an ancient, fraying uniform much like her daytime clothes, bedecked with badges and patches everywhere she could fit them. The mask came last, a furious battlecry rendered in steel. She sighed with relief as it slipped into place – these days, she felt naked without it.

Alastair was already giving his opening speech as Navira slipped in through the arena’s back door. “Alright, scum, are you ready to bow down to her Majesty?” The crowd jeered and hissed, but Navira just grinned. Anyone could get on stage and draw a few boos, but Alastair made the crowd love to hate him. He was the perfect villain – and remarkably strong for a human.

“Well, if you’re still resisting, I’ve no choice but to – wait!” He’d spied her coming into view through the tunnel. “Who’s this? Some foul _orc_ come to try and stop me? I’d like to see you _try_ , Miss… er…” He gasped and stepped back, face twisted in perfectly exaggerated fear.

The crowd’s murmurs erupted into thunderous roars as Navira stepped into the light.

“Surely it can’t be!” Alastair snarled. “My minions defeated you last week, in Caldabad! Have you truly returned to face me, _Lady Marine_?”

Navira held up a fist, cowing the audience to silence in an instant.

“Yeah,” she yelled, the voice amplified by her mask. “Step up, Duke Sinister! Or are you too _craven_ to face the toughest orc on the waterways?”

Lady Marine stretched her arms out and bathed in the sound of two hundred orcs screaming her name. The one she’d chosen for herself. Her _real_ name.


	26. Day 25: Family

My grandpa was a sailor in the Hundred-Handed Fleet  
He steered a sloop against the Ice Folk through the wind and hail and sleet  
And when his shore leave came, he’d take his daughter on his knee,  
And he’d say, “When you are older, this will pass and you’ll be free.”

My mother was a captain in the Second Undead War  
She led a company of heroes to enforce life’s final law  
And when the moors were quiet, she’d come home and visit me,  
And she’d say, “When you are older, this will pass and you’ll be free.”

My sister, she’s an engineer in Anthem’s First of Foot  
She works a cannon oiled with demon blood with hands stained black with soot  
And when she stops in town, she sends me notes across the sea,  
And she says, “When we are older, this will pass and we’ll be free.”

I joined the expedition on the day I came of age  
I was promised high adventure on a far, exotic stage  
The last ship off the Windward Isles had space enough for me,  
But my comrades won’t grow older, and their bones cannot live free.

The Queen’s lot had no use for me, with no strength left to lend,  
But another war is brewing now, and this time, she’ll defend.  
I’ve joined up with Ma Stonebrook – I’m a _family_ man now, see,  
And perhaps, when it’s all over, this will pass and I’ll be free.

– “The Auxiliary’s Lament”, author unknown, reprinted in _Whispers on the Waterway: Orcish Poetry of the Abbot Revolution_ (Enalyr, 505 ER).


	27. Day 26: Playing Games

“Sen! Zoh!”

Heavy footfalls in the dust. Preka weighed the sandbag in her hand, poised to strike.

“ _Rah!_ ”

Savi twisted aside and the bag flew past her, skidding towards the boundary. Too late, they both dived for it. They were laughing as they hit the dirt.

Savi had been away for five years, reading spellcraft in the Omnarchy, while Preka stayed at Dustcrown to learn steelworking. Savi had come back with a new name, a new voice, even a new body – a full, feminine frame with curves that Preka found her gaze catching on. It was, in theory, a lot to get used to.

But in practice, out among the mounds, playing sen zoh rah with a bag older than either of them, it was like they’d never been apart.

Preka reached out across the boundary, but the bag was just beyond her grasp. She let her arm fall to the ground in defeat, unwilling to get up just yet.

“I’ve missed this,” Preka eventually managed to say.

“Me too,” said Savi. “Omnarch sports are so complicated. You gotta know calculus to work out when you can pass. Fuck that.”

Preka nodded in agreement. “Fuck that,” she echoed. Savi’s smile was taking up too much of her attention for her own words.

It was a minute or so before Savi suggested they get up and play again. It was her possession, and she bounced the bag right off Preka’s hip with a triumphant “Rah!”

“What’s the score?” Savi asked, stooping to take the bag back.

Preka shrugged. “Lost count. You’re probably up a few. You usually are.”

“Let’s say I am.” Savi tossed the bag to Preka. “This time, hit me like you mean it.”

Preka nodded. She took a step forward. Savi stepped back, but not as far. “Sen.”

Preka dropped the bag as she took her second step. This time Savi didn’t move at all. “Zoh.”

“Preka…” Savi stammered, her cheeks flushing deep brown.

“Rah.” Preka grinned as she closed the gap between them. But she let Savi kiss her first. That was only fair. Winner’s privilege.


	28. Day 27: Call to Battle

It took a third round of knocking to convince Anzha that the call was, in fact, important. She dragged herself out of bed one heavy limb at a time, grabbed a towel to preserve a little modesty, and eased the door open a crack without looking through it.

“It’s Arveliday,” she grunted. “Don’t work on Arveliday.” Best to get that out of the way first.

“Sorry, Anzha, this isn’t a business call.” It was Nylo. Shit. The citizens’ militia rarely brought good news. “Can I come in?”

“Five minutes,” Anzha said. “Got company. Also, need coffee.”

Exactly five minutes later, Nylo came in to find an exhausted Anzha Tac-Turulac and a weirdly energetic Koss Merwether, dishevelled but decent, nursing huge, steaming mugs.

“Rough night?” he said as he sat down.

“Rougher than you’ll ever have,” Koss shot back. The wiry half-orc raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

“What’s going on, Nylo?” asked Anzha. “It’s Arveliday.”

“Yeah, you mentioned,” said Nylo. “Look, I’m sorry to call on you, but we’re going to need a few warm bodies down at the docks. Tonight.”

“Tonight?” Anzha, startled, bashed her mug against her tusk, then winced as she set it down. “Why didn’t we have more notice?”

“It’s Copperhead’s lads. Last night there was some infighting. Few windows got broken, two people hurt. Didn’t look like it all got resolved, so we want some able folks on patrol to break up scuffles if they happen, and, well…” Nylo waved his hand towards Anzha’s tightly coiled spring of a body. “You’re the ablest we have.”

Anzha sighed and stared into her coffee. She and Koss had plans tonight.. Civic duty was such a bitch sometimes.

“Any coffee left for me?” asked Nylo. “Been up all night trying to put this fire out…”

“No,” said Anzha flatly. “I’ll be there at sundown. See ya.”

Nylo took the hint and left.

Oh well, thought Anzha. If she couldn’t spend the night with the contents of Koss’s toy chest, cracking gangster heads was a fair backup plan.


	29. Day 28: Hunt

“Fan out and find the bastard!” boomed the inquisitor, firing his flare gun skywards to call for backup. Ewell grimaced in his hiding spot. The posse already after him was trouble enough.

Luckily, the church heavies weren’t subtle. The combination of chainmail and dozens of clinking talismans not only made them easy to detect, but could serve as a cover for his own noise. Just as well, really. Stealth in any sort of water, let alone dark, muddy swamp water, was a tricky endeavour.

He eluded them for a good half hour or so, even once more arrived to tighten the net. At last, though, he found himself pressed up against the trunk of a great bald cypress tree, filthy, soaked, both exits blocked by advancing grunts. He was dead meat.

Something whistled past his left ear. This puzzled Ewell for a moment. He’d have heard the distinct crack of an anointed crossbow, surely. Then there was a great commotion behind him. He dared not look, but it sounded very much like a heavily armoured man falling over into brackish water.

“Brother?” Another whistle, another great splash. What the hell was going on?

Before he could turn to see what was going on, Ewell spotted a pinprick glint of yellow light in the gloom. An eye. His eyes refocused to reveal the thick, long-limbed body the eye belonged to. It jerked a hand towards itself, beckoning him, and, sensing (relative) safety, he rushed for the undergrowth it was standing in.

“Who are you?” was a question he should probably have asked first, but better late than never. He could see his saviour’s features now. The thick, flat nose, the angular brow, the dagger-sharp lower teeth. And the sling – that explained the lack of noise.

“Ranger,” she grunted. “Coal Clan.”

“I owe you my life,” whispered Ewell. “I’m –”

“Don’t care,” said the ranger. “The church don’t like you, and we don’t like them. You’re with us, for now.” She slapped him on the back, almost hard enough to knock him over. “Let’s go.”


	30. Day 29: Armoury

Where humans and elves entrust the mending of wounds and the curing of sickness to their priests, orcs heal with balms, herbs, pills, potions, and a thousand more tiny miracles of science. A trained medic with sufficient tools and time can repair even the most grievous injuries. They cannot, however, restore what has been wholly lost. If an orc loses a limb in battle, they’re beyond a medic’s help.

No, for something like that, you go to Suture Steelfingers.

Suture lives in a workshop a half hour’s travel from Rulac’s Rest, with their lithe Lime Clan husband and a gaggle of assistants. Come in at the wrong moment and you’ll be greeted by waves of excoriating heat from their forge, but, if that doesn’t scare you off, they’ll talk to you, whatever the damage. To Suture, the body is a tool, and all tools, however worn and weathered, can be maintained. Show them what you need and let them take you in through iridescent lenses. Their services aren’t cheap, but they’re the best around.

Stay and watch them work, if you like. Follow them into the back room and see them gather their parts from racks upon racks of metal bones and joints and carapaces, each wholly unique. See how they earned their epithet, how they work the tools integrated into each cold, strong finger. Marvel at the needle-sharp precision of the cogwork mechanisms, always mating perfectly in the end, however improbable. Lie down on their operating table and watch the meldforge descend on you. Only Suture knows its true workings, and even they say its full power is beyond their measure. Close your eyes and bite the leather strap if you have to, but know that the pain is temporary.

Stand up. Try it out. Careful, it’s lighter than you think.

Suture takes payment in anything and everything, and may even give you a discount if you give them a currency they’re low on. They’re stockpiling, you see. But they won’t say what for.


	31. Day 30: Fragile

Every day, the Duke Superior and the Host Marshal rode out to a tower on the Cinnamon Plains. Each brought an entourage – bodyguards, advisors, attaches, a cast of dozens piled into the chamber at the tower’s peak. And there they sat, for eight neverending hours, to discuss terms.

The ceasefire had now lasted longer than the war it interrupted, but every fresh exchange of insults or cry of subterfuge threatened to shatter it. Diplomats whispered and schemed to devise solutions, finding new ways to split the disputed ground equally without actually ceding any control. Nothing stuck, of course. The humans of the Threefold Duchy and the orcs of the Gilt Road Confederacy had equally illegitimate claims on the Plains. The delegations muttered, as they saddled up to ride back to their camps, that surely this was the beginning of the end.

But the Host Marshal held firm, cowing his party to silence with mighty roars. And the Duke Superior held firm, ready to draw his blade on his own allies if they threatened to shatter the peace. And, day after day, not a single soldier crossed the border onto the Plains.

Every night, the Duke Superior and the Host Marshal rode out to a tent on the Cinnamon Plains, and this time they each rode alone. It was a common soldier’s tent, with no livery of either side. There they dismounted, slipped inside, and found temporary peace in each other’s arms. Even this was an uneasy peace; neither would admit to the achingly obvious adoration they shared for one another, nor to the transcendent bliss they felt when the towering Host Marshal pinned the Duke Superior down by the wrists and took his pleasure from the lean, hard-eyed human.

They left at dawn, returning swiftly to their camps, ready to wage a fresh war of words.

They couldn’t go on like this, foes by day, lovers by night. But nor could they abandon what they had. As long as they held together, there would be quiet on the Cinnamon Plains.


	32. Day 31: Twink

Down the stairs, between the pottery and the coffee house. First turning on the left. Look for the door with the red star painted on it.

Heric found it and pulled on the bell-rope before he had time to change his mind.

Quick feet descended the stairs on the other side of the door, and it swung open. “You here about the loom?” asked the lithe young man behind it. He was Granite Clan, the smooth, slightly mottled orange skin broken up by tattoos of what looked like Omnesque design. He wore only a grey robe, untied, and a black loincloth, and neither did anything to hide his near-serpentine physique.

He gave the counter-password, voice hoarse with nerves. “I hear it’s a little squeaky.”

The man smiled, showing off his split tusks and the thick electrum rings through his snakebite piercing. “Hi there, Heric. I’m Sunset. Come on up.”

Heric had made an appointment through this man’s intermediary the night before, but he still felt, somehow, that he shouldn’t be here. The bedroom Sunset led him into was far too opulent for him – silken sheets, tinted lanterns, and a kaleidoscope of cushions strewn about.

He raised his coin pouch, and his companion drew close to watch him count out the payment. “On the nightstand,” Sunset purred. “Thanks, darling. Now then…” He stepped back, shrugged off the robe, and stretched out on the bed, nestling into the pillows. “What can I do for you tonight?”

Heric swallowed hard. He’d rehearsed this, but it was still a challenge. “I’m, um… I’m courting someone. One of my old comrades from the warhost. But I want to make a good impression, and I’m not, um, experienced. With men, I mean.”

Sunset regarded him as one might regard a lost puppy. “Aw, honey,” he said. “Don’t you worry. Get your kit off, come here, and I’ll show you just how to make your man happy.”

Heric nodded hurriedly and began to strip.

“Oh my,” cooed Sunset as the britches came off. “That’s a _very_ good start.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap! Thank you so much for reading - this was a lot of fun, and I'll definitely be looking to do something similar next year.


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